


Twisted Love

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Break Up, Developing Relationship, Fights, Friendship, M/M, Mind Control, Opposites Attract, Out of Character, Paranoia, Paranormal, Reconciliation, Relationship(s), Slash, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 13:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12631692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: A bizarre after-effect of the Saika plague leaves lovers hating each other. And as for those who hate each other, well…





	Twisted Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kanra_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanra_chan/gifts).



> For Kanra chan, for being awesome :D

Shinra drives his fist into the wall.

“I hate her!”

Over the doctor’s head, Shizuo and Izaya exchange glances. Shinra is prone to the occasional mood swing, but he’d never bad-mouthed Celty before.

“Are you feeling OK, Shinra?” Izaya asks.

“I’m not the one with the problem, it’s her! I’ve done everything for her, I’ve dedicated my entire being to her since I was four years old, and what do I get?”

Shizuo gets uneasy as he rants. It wouldn’t be so weird, if he hadn’t just experienced something very similar with his brother that morning. His practically zen-like brother, who called up ranting about his girlfriend and how he couldn’t stand her any more.

“That was weird,” Izaya says quietly, when Shinra is out of earshot.

Shizuo nods.

“Everyone’s acting weird lately.”

Izaya gives him a look.

“You’ve noticed too?”

Shizuo hesitates, not wanting to talk about his brothers private affairs, least of all to Izaya.

“My secretary flipped this morning,” The informant confides. “She’s been in love with someone for a while, but this morning she was acting like she wanted to kill him. It made no sense.”

“Do you think…something’s going on?” Shizuo says uneasily. He looks at the spot in the park where he fought off all the Saika zombies, although it’s deserted now.

“Not at first,” Izaya says, following his gaze. “But after seeing Shinra like this, and if you’ve noticed something as well…” he trails off.

Shizuo thinks he is just lost in thought, until he puts a hand on the wall and staggers a bit.

“Oh, shit,” Shizuo says. He looks round awkwardly for Shinra. “Are you all right?” Just his luck if something were to happen to the flea, right in front of him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He straightens slowly. He is very pale. “I just got a headrush. Anyway, I was saying…what was I saying? Um, oh yeah, seeing as most people we know are either couples or in love, we may be the only ones who haven’t lost our minds. Maybe we should...I don't know, do something.”

“Right,” Shizuo says, thinking Izaya must be really ill, if he is actually thinking of helping people for once, and working with his enemy to do it. Shizuo can't stop looking at him. He is filled with concern for some reason. “Are you all right?”

Izaya nods. He stands there swaying for another minute before dropping. Shizuo catches him seconds before his head hits the concrete, lowering him down carefully as if he's afraid of breaking him.

"Why the fuck did you nod?" he grumbles.

A crowd begin to gather, and someone's sent to get Shinra, who calms down enough to do his job and help.

“It’s the pressure,” Someone says. “Something in the air. It’s getting to a lot of people.”

-

Things unravel pretty quickly from there. Celty moves out. Shinra is fuming, and Celty won’t answer the phone. Shizuo hopes she’s OK. Kasuka and Ruri break up, and Kasuka calls him every other day to lament over how he could have wound up with someone so horrible. He gets a bizarre call from his mother saying she is going to live with a friend for a while. Shizuo tries to talk to Kasuka about it, but he’s too absorbed in his own love life to care. Even Tom starts muttering vindictively abou a girl he’d only been on a few dates with. He walks past the Orihara twins on the way home from work, screaming at each other about Kasuka, and decides not to step in.

For once in his life, Shizuo is glad he’s single.

Izaya doesn’t call. Not that Shizuo had expected him to. Shizuo wonders how he’s feeling. Shizuo’s not on top of the world himself. He has a strange, spaced out feeling, like none of it really mattered. Like someone could hurl a trashcan at him, and he wouldn’t even bother moving out of the way.

The pressure, that unknown voice had said. The air went from too heavy to too much air. He wonders if there was a gas leak somewhere. If the government was putting something in their water in some kind of bizarre experiment.

Izaya does call one night, however, and it brings him back to himself a bit.

Izaya also realised something was up, he remembers. Izaya would probably have a plan. Shizuo doesn’t like the flea, but he’s smart and he’s resourceful, and Ikebukuro needed all the help it could get.

-

Izaya looks and behaves reassuringly normal when Shizuo comes over. He calls Shizuo three cruel names in the space of a minute, and the normalcy of it is almost a relief.

“My secretary quit,” he says suddenly, pouring them tea. “She’s really upset about her – about her guy. She’s always been a bit of a kook, but this is different. I think she might actually do something.”

He keeps trying to sound aloof and failing.

“Have you spoken to Celty?” he asks Shizuo.

“I can’t get hold of her.”

“Maybe she’s already doing something about it. We need all the supernatural help we can get.”

“Hm. She seems sad.”

“Shinra too. They were so happy.”

“I know. I can’t believe she left.”

“I don’t blame her though. Shinra’s out of his mind lately. I feel like I should…not hit him over the head with something, but something similar, you know? Something drastic that will make everything all right again.”

“I feel that way about my brother.”

“Your brother too? The most chilled out guy on Earth? This is getting weirder.”

“Maybe it’ll pass. People keep saying it’s something in the air.”

Izaya doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Shizuo thinks he is just lost in thought, when he says,

“Why are we here again?”

Shizuo frowns, and as soon as he's said it it's like he's flipped a switch, and Shizuo can't remember either. They stare at each other like idiots.

“We were- talking about something.”

“Just us?” Izaya says, a bit unnecessarily, seeing as it’s just the two of them.

“Well, we definitely weren’t fighting,” Shizuo says, looking at the tea.

“Hmm. I guess.”

“Do you feel better now?” Shizuo asks. This suddenly seems important. "I remember you fell the last time I saw you."

“Oh, yeah," he says. "I don’t know what that was. I’m fine now.”

“That’s good.”

Shizuo keeps looking at him. He likes looking at him. He feels peaceful and happy, more than he had all week when everyone else's bullshit started. When Izaya puts his tea down, Shizuo leans over and kisses him.

-

_-Shinra, you have to listen to me-_

“No!”

Celty flinches. She knows he can’t help it, that it’s not his fault, but he’s never raised his voice at her before.

“You never loved me. You always pushed me away and made me feel like I’m nothing, and I’ve finally seen the light. I don’t love you, Celty. Get out.”

-

In her apartment, Namie is sobbing for the first time since her parents died. She’d loved Seiji so, so much, she didn’t realise she’s have nothing left once that was gone. And what could she do about it? It’s not like she could receive any comfort for loving her _brother_.

Izaya had called, the brat, and she had ended up screaming at him and throwing the phone. The bastard. He’d never understand. He didn't love anyone.

-

Alone in his room, Kasuka frowns. He keeps getting this feeling that something is wrong, very wrong, but whenever he thinks about calling Ruri, all the hatred and anger returns.

_She doesn’t love me. She used me._

And yet. Something is definitely, somehow, not right.

He keeps calling Shizuo for advice, but Shizuo always sounds a little out of it these days. Who knew what was going on. Perhaps his brother had finally found someone for himself.

-

He can’t believe it. Saki had taken his money and run. They’d been fighting a lot lately, but he never thought she'd stoop to this. Masaomi shakes with anger at the thought of how much he'd suffered, the yellow scarves, the guilt, all the shit he went through with Izaya, and he's suddenly glad for whatever pain he caused her. How _could_ she?

No. She couldn’t have, it must be a mistake. Maybe he’d lost the money. But even if he had, she’d still left. He balls his fists. He'd rather lose the money than ever see her again.

-

 In Shinjuku, immune to the cloud in the city over everyone's heart, Shizuo and Izaya are play-wrestling in the shower. They hadn't got out of bed all weekend, except to do this and to eat. They would lie there hugging when they’re too tired for anything else.

Izaya’s apartment is a mess, their clothes on the floor and dirty dishes left to stain in the sink. They both mostly ignore their phones.

Part of the feeling that something’s not right still persists, but Shizuo brushes it away. He’s happy. He feels dopey and drugged up, but in a good way. He can’t even remember what spurred him to come here. He feels like they were meant to be talking about something important, but this feels important too, like they are making up for lost time. He doesn't understand why it took him so long to kiss Izaya. They could have got started in school. With all the fights and chasing, they were alone together at least once a day.

Monday rolls around.

Shizuo hugs Izaya to wake him up.

“I have to go to work,” he tells him.

“Aww.”

Shizuo hesitates.

“I could come back around midnight, if that’s not too…”

Izaya is already feeling around the bedside table without lifting his head. He pushes his keys into Shizuo’s hand.

“I might be asleep. You’ve worn me out.”

-

Izaya is not asleep when he gets in but in the shower. Shizuo is about to join him when his phone rings. He frowns, considers ignoring it, but his voicemail is getting pretty full.

It's Kasuka. He's not sure he did the right thing with Ruri, but he can't help himself, he just hates her now. "I've never felt this way before. I guess this is how you feel about Izaya. It's just consuming my whole life right now."

Shizuo’s fully sympathetic, until Izaya himself comes out in just a towel and leans on him.

“That really sucks, Kasuka,” Shizuo says, putting an arm around Izaya and nuzzling his neck. Izaya starts teasing him, not letting him pull the towel off when he tries. “I have to go," Shizuo says, unable to win one handed. "Yeah, yeah, that's terrible. I’ll call you back.”

-

The next call he can be bothered taking is in the morning, from Celty. He only answers because she never calls, for obvious reasons, and he wonders how she will go about this problem.

“I’m using a Dictaphone thing,” she says, voice echoey and tin-like.

“It’s kind of creepy. You sound like a robot.”

“I know, but texting is too slow right now. How are you? Is everyone still being weird?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. I just got off the phone with my brother last night. He doesn't know what he wants.”

Izaya, who doesn't like the loss of attention whenever he's on the phone, jumps on his back and hangs on.

Shizuo wobbles a little but stays on his feet. Izaya is very light.

“Did you find anything?” he says, walking backwards into the wall to crush Izaya there. He is only half-listening to Celty.

"I’ve managed to talk to Saika. This should stop soon. All she wanted was to make people realise how much they meant to one another.”

“Uh huh,” Shizuo says, as tipping is head back into Izaya's as the informant runs his nails down his back underneath his shirt. “That’s nice.”

She says something else as Shizuo turns and pins Izaya’s hands with his free arm, forcing a leg between his, saying in a rush.

“Got-to-go Celty, oven.”

He hangs up and crushes Izaya’s smirking mouth with his own.

Celty is left on the end of the line, mystified.

_What the hell is an oven?_

-

The next morning, something is different. Shizuo is inexplicably sad and he’s not sure why.

He leaves Izaya in bed and goes to look out the window. He frowns. His brother is out there, holding hands with Ruri. After a moment he realises it is not them, it looks nothing like them, but it doesn’t shake his feeling of unease. He feels an old itch for a cigarette, one he hasn’t had since he started fooling around with Izaya.

Izaya wakes up and gets out of bed, hugging him from behind.

“What are you looking at?”

“…Nothing,” he sighs. He turns round and hugs Izaya back appreciatively, inhaling his hair. Every day he feels like he's just met the informant, that he's woken up with a beautiful stranger who knows everything about him, from what he likes to eat to how he likes his back rubbed. He never wants it to end. “Let’s go back to bed.”

-

Gradually, everyone starts to get back to normal. Celty moves back in. Kasuka is mortified about his raving phone calls to Shizuo. Namie goes back to her old obsession. The twins make up and continue to idolise Kasuka. His parents call, explaining that all couples have problems, that they're sorry for scaring him, but they sound puzzled, like they've just woken up from a dream and can't remember which parts are real. And so Ikebukuro is Ikebukuro again.

Except for Shizuo and the informant

On Shizuo's part, he regains a mental clarity he'd all but forgotten. He realises the absurdity of what had been happening, that it can't have been of his free will, only, even in light of his newfound senses, his urges haven't gone. He feels no need to go home, and Izaya doesn't tell him to. They drift around each other like ghosts as they come back to themselves, coming to terms with it in their own way. They get on each other’s nerves more, now their old thought processes and habits are restored, but they still sleep together, even after they’ve fought.

Izaya is moodier, more paranoid than Shizuo.

“Don’t go to work," he says one evening. "Stay here with me.”

So he doesn’t go to work.

He lies in bed hugging Izaya to try and make him feel better.

“Just because everyone else is changing doesn’t mean we have to.”

“We will though.”

“We won’t. We can do whatever we want.”

Izaya says nothing.

“Izaya.” Shizuo pulls him around to face him. “You have to try, OK? If you don’t make an effort then obviously it won't work.”

This softens him.

“I know,” he says. “I’m just thinking about what happened to everyone. They must have just woken up one day hating each other. What if that happens to us?”

“It won’t. We've had enough fights and hate between us to last a lifetime. There's none left."

Izaya smiles wryly.

"You think so?"

"It's been weeks," Shizuo says. Eight weeks and three days, to be precise. Technically months. "Stop being so paranoid." He suddenly gets an idea. "Let's go away together."

"What? You mean as like a test?"

"Not a test. Just, y'know, why not? It'll be nice. We'll tell people not to contact us unless it's an emergency, and we'll just relax for a few days. Everything's so tense here."

"Going away together's a pretty big deal," Izaya observes. "Are we going to tell people?"

"When we get back. I can't be bothered with the hassle."

-

They don’t _tell people_ exactly, but their close acquaintances find out quite naturally when the city is fully back to normal, its couples behaving as if they'd been separated for ten years, rather than less than ten days.

The Noodle Festival is in town. The park is alive with tents and makeshift huts, children running around with painted animals' faces, the sun shining, band playing, and the mouth watering smell of at least 50 types of noodles sizzling in their stalls.

Shinra and Celty are there, hand in hand, mainly for Shinra's benefit. She likes the atmostphere, though. A few other bikers are milling around, so she's not the only one in her helmet. They run into Erika and co and stop to chat.

“Is that Shizuo over there?” Walker says. “Who’s that he's with?”

They all turn and stare.

Shizuo is leaning back against a wall at the perimeter of the festival, tucking into noodles from a carton. A man is sitting on the same wall, his shoes on the ground, his feet balanced on Shizuo’s legs, also eating noodles. Shizuo accepts this as if the man's feet are part of him, like an elephant would ignore a bird.

“Omigod,” Erika whispers. "That's _Izaya_." Walker and Kadota give her an unsettled look as she turns the colour of heart attacks.

 _-The Saika thing_ , Celty types frantically in Shinra's face. _I knew Shizuo had been acting weird lately._

“Shall we go say hi?” Walker says uncertainly.

“Yes!” Erika says, eyes gleaming. They follow her uncertainly as she prances off.

Izaya frowns at all of them. He takes his feet off Shizuo’s legs and puts his shoes back on as if they’ve come to tell him off.

“Are you…are you?!” Erika asks, her eyes shining, barely able to contain her excitement.

They both just look at her, deadpan. Walker and Kadota get shifty at the prospect of annoying Shizuo, and attempt to pull her away.

“Well, great seeing you guys. I think we’ll go get some more noodles.”

She keeps looking back at them, as if frightened of missing something.

“So, are you?” Shinra prompts, the minute they’re out of earshot.

Izaya rolls his eyes.

Celty is waving her phone in their, mostly Shizuo’s, faces.

_-You know this is just an after effect of Saika, don’t you? You have to fight it. It can be very dangerous to bend to her will._

“How do you know it’s Saika?" Shinra argues. "Everyone else is back to normal. Maybe Saika gave them a push, and now it’s just them.”

Shizuo feels Izaya stiffen beside him as Celty types back at Shinra, and wants to put an arm around him.

“Don’t worry about them,” he says instead.

“Mm,” he says, sounding unconvinced. “I’ll go get us some milkshakes.”

Shinra and Celty keep arguing as Izaya slips away. Tom comes along then, his arm around the girl Shizuo can never remember the name of. He hopes this will change the subject, but he overhears Shinra and Celty and just has to get involved.

“Izaya?” he says, his eyes wide. “Celty’s right, that's really not a good idea. Why don’t you just, I don’t know, have a few days to yourself, and see if that makes it go away?"

Erika and the gang also join them again, and he finds himself defending himself against the majority of his friends.

“This is starting to really piss me off,” he interrupts eventually. “Can we please, please, change the subject?”

Izaya pushes past Tom then and hands Shizuo his milkshake. Shizuo had no idea how long he’d been there.

“I’m gonna go,” he says to Shizuo, handing over his own milkshake as well.

“What?” Shizuo says. “Why?”

He just shrugs.

“See you later.”

He’s gone before Shizuo can stop him, disappearing into the crowd like a cat in the night. Shizuo’s left staring after him stupidly, a milkshake in either hand. Shinra sees and comes over.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” Shizuo says, absently taking a sip of Izaya’s milkshake. Passion fruit, bitter and sweet. “I hope I haven’t upset him. Did you convice Celty she's wrong?”

"We agreed to disagree," he says happily. "Fights aren't worth it."

"Yeah," Shizuo sighs, still looking after Izaya.

“You shouldn’t listen to them, though,” Shinra says quietly. “Celty’s wonderful, but she’s over-cautious. There’s nothing wrong in making a go of it with Izaya.”

“Thank you,” Shizuo says, surprised. Shinra had never been much more than an acquaintance since elementary school. He didn’t expect such support.

“We’re having a Hot Pot later,” Shinra says. “If we’re not too full of noodles. You should come.”

-

He keeps trying Izaya, but the informant’s not answering his phone. Shizuo considers going to Shinjuku to physically get him, but everyone talk him out of it; by the time he got to Shinjuku and back, the food would be cold, and Izaya might not even be there. So he stays. And regrets it almost immediately.

Shinra and Celty, Kasuka and Ruri, even Tom and his girlfriend, who barely knew each other, were all over each other like they'd been separated in a war. He wants Izaya like he wants a cigarette, an endless, almost painful craving. And even worse, they all had the nerve to lecture him about it.

“OK,” Shizuo snaps, before he loses it. “I’m sorry, I know you all mean well, but you need to shut the hell up. You have no right to go on about Izaya like that. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You were the ones acting like maniacs towards each other a few months ago, not us.”

“That’s because you act like that towards each other all the time, Shizuo,” Kasuka points out mildly. "And it was upsetting, seeing you with him."

“Well, it was upsetting for me seeing you guys the way you were,” Shizuo growls. “But you don’t see me giving you any crap.”

“I'm not giving you any crap, Shizuo," Erika says.

"We're not giving you crap either, Shizuo," Tom says. "We're just saying, of all the people you could pick to fool around with- "

“We’re not just fooling around. We went away together.”

They stare at him like he’s announced they’ve given birth. He can see Erika mentally planning wedding gifts and baby showers.

“Where? When?”

“Mount Fuji. About a week ago.” He shrugs. “He was worried about, well, about exactly what’s happening right now. So we went away together to take his mind off it.”

“Together??”

He rolls his eyes.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“What was that like?”

“It was perfect,” Shizuo says, and it was. They spent a day climbing the mountain, a day in the hot springs, and a day in bed. On Fuji’s summit, they had sat down on the top of the mountain, the sky clear and pure, looking across to Ikebukuro and the rest of the world. He had drawn Izaya back to his chest and between his legs, and they didn’t get up again until they were on the verge of freezing. A few people had given them looks, but most had simply pretended not to see them.

“That’s so nice,” Shinra sighs. “I have to take you, Celty.”

Shizuo forces himself back to the present.

“Look, whatever happened was months ago. I admit it’s weird, it’s probably not normal and Izaya’s done a ton of shit in the past, but if I can get past all that then you guys have no excuse.”

After a moment, Celty holds out her phone guiltily.

_-Invite him. There’s plenty of food left._

“I can’t invite him now, like he’s an afterthought. You should have invited us both when he was with us, not after he left.”

She starts typing something else, but Shizuo is already getting up. He shouldn't have bothered coming.

"Forget it. Thanks for the food."

-

He walks twice as fast as usual, fantasising about crawling into Izaya’s arms the entire way to Shinjuku.

Izaya is in bed when he gets there, reading, but apparently not in a cuddling mood.

“How was the Hot Pot?” he says tightly.

“Awful,” Shizuo says, getting in bed and burying his face in Izaya’s abdomen, ignoring how he tenses. “Everyone was all over each other, and you weren’t there. Where’ve you been all day, Izaya-kun? You haven’t picked up the phone once.”

Shizuo feels him shrug.

“I just felt like relaxing here. I get too many phone calls.”

As if by magic, Izaya’s phone starts ringing then. He laughs bitterly.

Shizuo lifts his head and picks it up for him.

“It’s Celty.”

“How can it be Celty?”

“She uses a Dictaphone sometimes.”

He presses the pick up button before Izaya can protest, and holds the phone up to him.

“Hello, freak,” Izaya says, taking it. Shizuo goes still on Izaya’s chest, listening to her toneless, genderless voice. He starts massaging circles into Izaya's skin, feels him fighting not to relax into it. “OK,” Izaya says after a minute. “I don’t really care.” He grabs Shizuo's hand to still it, concentrating on whatever Celty's saying.

“That’s fine,” he says. “I didn’t ask him to come home. To come over, I mean. Don’t worry about it.”

After a moment he hangs up.

“Well, that’s the first time anyone’s apologised to me in a long time.”

“Good,” Shizuo says. “Did she invite you to the next one they’re throwing?”

“She did. Well, both of us. Obviously.”

Izaya puts his book aside and turns off the lamp. Shizuo moves off his chest to curl around him instead.

"I'm sorry about the stupid Hot Pot," he says.

"Why do people keep apologising to me," Izaya says sleepily. "It's like another alternate universe."

"There was no alternate universe," Shizuo tells him. "I'm really here."

"Whatever. Go to sleep."


End file.
